Impact of Traceability on Counterfeit Electronics in the DoD Supply Chain

The impact of counterfeit electronics is far reaching and potentially devastating to organizations, economies and even human life. Counterfeit electronic components continue to pollute the DoD supply chain despite regulatory actions and concentrated efforts from industry. Although avoidance strategies and detection technologies have had some success, little research exists on how internal traceability of components impacts the proliferation of counterfeits once they have infiltrated the supply chain. This work presents a System Dynamics model to determine the impact of internal traceability on both the proliferation of counterfeit components and the cost to remediate discovered counterfeits. Data from five weapon system programs was used to calibrate a multi-tiered supply chain model subject to counterfeit component recalls. Simulations revealed that increasing the accuracy of recalls over 90% decreases the volume of counterfeits by over 10%. In addition, inventory policies and procedures can mimic systemic traceability, but the additional remediation costs are substantial. Finally, traceability at the Customer tier was shown to have a significantly greater impact on the total counterfeit stock levels than any other tier.

Author

• Kelley, Martin

Language

• en

Date created

• 2021

Type of Work

• Dissertation

License

• All rights reserved

Rights statement

• In Copyright

GW Unit

• Engineering Management

Degree

• D.Engr.

Advisor

• Dimitriou, Aristos

Committee Member(s)

• Etemadi, Amir
• Eveleigh, Timothy

Persistent URL

•  https://scholarspace.library.gwu.edu/etd/vd66w0823